PA REGULATION

The Department of Health and Social Care has closed its consultation on the draft legislation to regulate Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates.

The proposed legislation sets out the powers and duties that the GMC will have concerning AAs and PAs.

This consultation sought views on the Anaesthesia Associates and Physician Associates order (AAPAO) that will give the General Medical Council (GMC) the necessary powers and duties to regulate AAs and PAs in the UK.

The public consultation on Physician Associate regulation has now closed, and the Department for

Health and Social Care and other bodies will be analysing the responses The AAPAO legislation will then be presented to the Westminster parliament and devolved legislatures in the four countries of the UK; sometime in the second half of 2023 after the replies to the consultation have been analysed and published.

Whilst securing parliamentary time might be challenging, once the legislation is approved, the GMC will then conduct its own consultation on their rules, policies, and instructions required to implement the legislation to bring PAs and AAs under regulation. Though it’s never easy to predict how long legislative processes will take, things are moving forward, and the GMC are still optimistic that the required legal procedures can be finished before the end of 2024.

ARRS funding covers all of these different professions:

Clinical pharmacists

Pharmacy technicians

First contact physiotherapists

Dietitians

Podiatrists

Occupational therapists

Community paramedics

Nursing associates and trainee NAs

Social prescribing link workers

Link workers

Care co-ordinators

Health and wellbeing coaches

And of course, Physician Associates ccording to GMC guidance on delegation and referral, doctors can delegate tasks to non‑doctors.

Physician Associates work under the ’delegation clause’ and therefore PAs are responsible for their own actions and omissions and are responsible to their supervising doctor. Therefore, there needs to be appropriate supervision arrangements in place.

To practise in the UK, Physician Associates need professional indemnity insurance. The employer normally foots the bill for this coverage. The titles of the schemes vary between primary care and secondary care, as well as across the UK’s four nations. Yet, all PAs working for NHS organisations should be protected by their country’s state-backed indemnification programme.

Private indemnity goes beyond the basics, to provide extra coverage for Physician Associates, but comes at an extra cost.

PAs are highly advised to purchase their own professional negligence insurance from one of the medical defence companies, which would give them access to “non-claims” advantages including support at coroners’ inquests and assistance with disciplinary actions.

The yearly PA census suggests that in primary care, the employer frequently bears the expense of PA indemnity.